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Freedom Riders : 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice

By: Arsenault, RaymondMaterial type: TextTextSeries: eBooks on DemandPublisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press, USA, 2011Edition: 2nd edDescription: 1 online resource (321 p.)ISBN: 9780199792429Subject(s): African American civil rights workers --History --20th century | African Americans --Civil rights --Southern States --History --20th century | African Americans --Segregation --Southern States --History --20th century | Civil rights movements --Southern States --History --20th century | Civil rights workers --United States --History --20th century | Segregation in transportation --Southern States --History --20th century | Southern States --Race relations --History --20th centuryGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Freedom Riders : 1961 and the Struggle for Racial JusticeDDC classification: 323.092 | 323.097509046 LOC classification: E185.61.A69 2011Online resources: Click here to view this ebook.
Contents:
Contents; List of Maps; Preface; Author's Note; Introduction; 1. You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow; 2. Beside the Weary Road; 3. Hallelujah! I'm A-Travelin'; 4. Alabama Bound; 5. Get on Board, Little Children; 6. If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus; 7. Freedom's Coming and It Won't Be Long; 8. Ain't Gonna Let No Jail House Turn Me 'Round; 9. Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom; 10. Oh, Freedom; Epilogue: Glory Bound; Note on Sources
Summary: The saga of the Freedom Rides is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, four hundred and fifty Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account. With characters and plot lines rivaling those of the most imaginative fiction, this is a tale of heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph. Arsenault recounts how a group of
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Item type Current location Call number URL Status Date due Barcode
Electronic Book UT Tyler Online
Online 		E185.61.A69 2011 (Browse shelf) http://uttyler.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=665407 Available EBL665407

Contents; List of Maps; Preface; Author's Note; Introduction; 1. You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow; 2. Beside the Weary Road; 3. Hallelujah! I'm A-Travelin'; 4. Alabama Bound; 5. Get on Board, Little Children; 6. If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus; 7. Freedom's Coming and It Won't Be Long; 8. Ain't Gonna Let No Jail House Turn Me 'Round; 9. Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom; 10. Oh, Freedom; Epilogue: Glory Bound; Note on Sources

The saga of the Freedom Rides is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, four hundred and fifty Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account. With characters and plot lines rivaling those of the most imaginative fiction, this is a tale of heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph. Arsenault recounts how a group of

Description based upon print version of record.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Arsenault (history, Univ. of South Florida; Jacksonville: The Consolidation Story, from Civil Rights to the Jaguars) deftly weaves an intricate narrative of the 1961 Freedom Rides, the civil rights effort by black and white volunteers to enforce the integration of interstate buses and travel facilities throughout the Deep South. Narrating the origins, the violent and turbulent rides themselves, the litigation, and the legacy, this work is similar, in its skillful crafting, to James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom on the Civil War. Arsenault recounts the dynamics of the civil rights organizations that eventually banded together to sustain the Freedom Rides, as well as the individual riders who suffered mob beatings and prison sentences. The interplay of the riders with municipal and state leaders, as well as with the Kennedys and the FBI at the federal level, is skillfully portrayed. The 500 pages are justified when one considers the near inexhaustible courage of the freedom riders and the significance of the national crisis they forced. For a more concise, thesis-driven history of the Freedom Rides, consider David Niven's The Politics of Injustice: The Kennedys, the Freedom Rides, and the Electoral Consequences of a Moral Compromise. Freedom Riders will find avid readership among patrons of academic collections.-Jim Hahn, Harper Coll. Lib., Palatine, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Drawing on a mountain of sources, Arsenault (Univ. of South Florida) has written a top-notch study of the freedom rides. His description of this dramatic protest for racial equality, which the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) initiated in May 1961, is extremely well researched and reads like a labor of love. In addition to exploring a vast array of new aspects of the rides, Arsenault argues that they played a much larger role in the modern struggle for civil rights than most studies of the era suggest. Most broadly, Arsenault asserts that the freedom rides "expanded the realm of the possible in American political and social insurgency" and redefined the limits of "individual and collective action." In 1998, after Bill Clinton presented CORE director James Farmer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Farmer remarked that he worried that "people would forget" him and his work. Arsenault's study makes sure that the courageous actions of Farmer and the 436 men and women who defied the southern way of life and stood up for their rights as Americans by daring to ride through the South in a desegregated manner will not be forgotten. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. P. B. Levy York College of Pennsylvania

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Raymond Arsenault is John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.

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